ALSO a catalogue for an exhibition, this one was held at the Metropolitan earlier this year and presents a little-known aspect of the ancient Peruvian world, covering a period of 2000 years from the late millennium BC, when silver first appeared in tiny personal adornments, until the Spanish conquest in the 16th century, by which time it was worked into sizeable pieces exclusively for the nobility – naturally.
From the American Museum of Natural History, NY came ten pieces including the famous mid-15th-early 16th century long-haired Inca llamas, (page 55), one wearing a red blanket, arguably the finest pieces of Inca silversmithing in existence and reportedly found near a rock sacred to the Inca, on the island of Titicaca, where they had been placed with other objects as offerings to the gods.
The cover illustration of the elaborate 8in silver panpiper vessel, for court or ceremonial drinking, a figure of a man playing a panpipe, dressed in a tunic, wearing a cap and earrings and carrying a shoulder-bag, is charming as is the catalogue title taken from an Inca invocation: The sun rains gold/The moon rains silver.
Rain of the Moon
Rain of the Moon: Silver in Ancient Peru, by Heidi King with contributions, published by Metropolitan Museum of Art, distributed by Yale University Press. ISBN 0300085125. £14.95 pb.
